CONFIDENCE is key to any team who wants to win and that is best illustrated with Middlesbrough over the past 18 months states Justin Hoyte.

Before current boss Tony Mowbray arrived, Boro were most people’s tip to win promotion last season, only for the team to plummet towards the bottom.

Under Gordon Strachan, they constantly misfired and with each passing defeat, the body language of the players was enough to turn the air blue.

Enter Mowbray who injected some belief back into the team and when asked if the gaffer had any magical formula to get Boro back up the table, Hoyte says it was just a case of restoring confidence.

He said: “Without a doubt, this season has been completely different to the previous one.

“The position we were in this time last season was not great but now we’re doing much better this season.

“We’ve got ourselves into a great position now and it is a case of pushing on as we enter the second half of the season to try and get that automatic promotion spot – at worst the play-offs.

“Tony was just completely different when he came in. He already had the experience of playing and managing in the Championship and has gone about boosting our confidence.

“We now play with that confidence and also with belief. It has showed on the pitch and on the training ground with the stuff he’s brought in.

“Like getting us to play football and we’ve done that and we’re enjoying playing as well. That’s down to Tony being a great manager.

“Last season was hard but after Tony came the final part of that season saw us pushing on and that has carried over into this season.

“It helped that Tony said as soon as he arrived, ‘just forget where we are and make sure we get ourselves into a safe position’.

“We did that and then we followed that up with a great pre-season. It was a great atmosphere and everybody worked hard, got a great team bond and taken all of that into this season. It has worked really well.

“It was difficult last season. The league position we were in was difficult to deal with. We seem more united and as a team now who work hard for each other.

“We want the same goals – winning games and getting into the Premier League – and you can see that in our performances.”

Middlesbrough go into the second half of the season knowing that they have a strong chance of winning promotion.

However, as Hoyte states, the team fully recognise that plenty of hard work still lies ahead and that nothing is being taken for granted.

He added: “We’ll never get too carried away as there’s still a lot of games to go and we’ve still got to play the big teams above us again.

“There’s never any easy games in this league. Anyone can beat anyone in this division. You can see that when you look at the results.

“But we know that if we can go out and play our game, we can beat whoever we’re playing on the day. Other teams will also think that.”